


My Sister's Keeper

by LalasDreamLand



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Family, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Siblings, Sisters, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 10:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17445494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LalasDreamLand/pseuds/LalasDreamLand
Summary: If they didn't have anyone else, they'd always have each other.





	My Sister's Keeper

**Author's Note:**

> This is a form of character study I decided to do on our favorite Diamond City sisters. A lot of Piper & Nat's past regarding their mother we don't know about, this is my original take on that.

Piper Wright remembers a time where she was neither loved nor hated, her life a mutual existence in the irradiated wasteland of the Commonwealth. Just another head to tally among a sea of settlers, people just trying to survive day to day. A doting mother, a loving father and Piper the curious golden child and apple of their eyes. She was never a perfectly behaved little girl, her nose was always in a book but she could sniff out trouble like a mutated hound. Her fingers constantly fidgeting or wrapped around a worn out number two pencil, a scorched but still useful notepad in the other; notes she was always taking notes. 

_“This is Piper, my beautiful… observant daughter.”_

She remembers how oftentimes her parents- well, mostly her father, would struggle to describe her to new settlers in their tiny outskirt town. Piper was sure after a few days they understood what her father meant about her, eyes open and ears to the ground even when she was the tender age of eight. If it wasn’t for her keen eye and ‘nosey’ nature as her mother would so lovingly say, they never would have figured out the newest settlers that year were actually ex-Capital wasteland chem addicts looking for a new place to set up the chem trade. 

_“Our little hero.”_

She remembers her parents saying as they fondly ran their fingers through her raven locks and kissing her forehead. That night they had brahmin steak and for dessert she got her own package of gumdrops _and_ Fancy Lad snack cakes. Piper was truly spoiled, she was their only child and she was treated the way most parents would treat an only child. 

_Was_ is the key word though. Piper remembers overhearing the worry in her father’s voice as he asked _“are you really sure?!”_ why was he so worried, what did her mother need to be sure of? It wasn’t until Piper put her investigative skills to work once more and noticed the symptoms: nausea, vomiting, aversion to certain foods and _weight gain._

Piper Wright wasn’t going to be an _only_ child much longer.

The pregnancy went by quickly and fairly smooth, there were hangups of course, her mother wasn’t ‘young’ by wasteland birthing standards and radiation takes it’s toll on the body and has it’s long term effects. Piper grimaces remembering the gauntness in her mother’s face during the final months, it wasn’t normal but she carried on regardless. Observant, always observant and this had been the only time Piper wished that she wasn’t. Her mother’s hollow cheeks and frail hands still haunt her to this day, but oh the smiles, those smiles when she’d feel that baby kick.

Natalie Wright was born into this world literally kicking and screaming, much like her personality continues to show to this day. Was that a laugh or a sob Piper hears escape from her own mouth thinking about her feisty little papergirl of a sister? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. Tears on her terminal keyboard were nothing new to her and they fall even faster as she remembers how Nat’s boisterous cries grew stronger and her mother’s voice grew silent. 

A new life began but another had ended. 

Their mother was buried atop a hill overlooking the ocean in what would be northern Maryland territory. It was a beautiful day and no sounds or signs of a rad storm in sight, of course her mother would let them have this day, this _perfect_ day to lay her to rest and say their final goodbyes. Piper remembers her father’s quiet sobs and her own silent tears hitting the makeshift gravestone as she held tightly to her newborn sister; eventually all that could be heard were the quiet coos of an oblivious and motherless newborn baby girl. 

She wanted- no, she _needed_ to hate her but Piper never could.

The coming days, the coming years were hard ones. She was nineteen with a one year old baby sister attached to her hip, little Natalie was a healthy baby regardless of the destroyed world she was born into and she always showed it. Loud, talkative, beyond active; Piper and her father could barely keep up with her. If she was misbehaving, who could make her behave? Piper. If she was crying, who could stop the tears? Piper. If she was angry, who could stop the tantrum? Piper. 

Natalie _always_ wanted Piper but Piper didn’t always want Natalie. 

Nat was the constant reminder that her mother was gone, the constant reminder that maybe if this child didn’t exist her mother would still be alive. _Another choked sobbed_ as tears fall with ease, Piper always lived with that reminder. When settlers or new caravan traders would catch a glimpse of teenage Piper toting baby Nat she had to endure those words, _“your daughter is beautiful, she looks just like you.”_ With a nod and a rushed explanation _“uh… actually my sister.”_ Piper would move on with haste, make her trades and be done with the day. 

There was _always_ the reminder. 

Three more years passed and Nat is four, Piper is twenty-two and their father grows more and more short tempered with his job. He’s the co-captain of the settlement guard, he serves and protects and does his job well but even he has noticed his supervisors suspicious behavior; of course Piper even more so. Their days feel long but they’re always too short, Natalie continues to grow into the spitting image of her mother and older sister; poor broken hearted Piper tries to pretend she doesn’t love the fact that when she looks at the girl she sees her mother’s grin and kind eyes staring back at her once more.

They live their new normal to the best of their abilities and at twenty-two with a four year old trailing her case Piper can only do so much local investigating. _“There’s stories to be told, people to be helped!”_ Piper remembers practically yelling at her father one night after he chewed her out again for taking little Natalie into yet another dangerous situation. She knew she was wrong for taking her baby sister with her, these were raiders she scoped out but luckily when bullets started to fly they only grazed her shoulder and Nat stayed silent until they knew they were far enough away. 

_“Do you want her dead, is this some kind of vengeance because you blame her for…”_

_“What? No! I just… I can’t talk about that or her.”_

That would be one of the last conversations Piper had with her father. 

Those raiders that nearly killed Piper and Nat had finally killed their father- well, fatally wounded him. He laid still as possible in that old cot but it still didn’t stop the pain or the blood flow, she was- no, they were going to lose their father too and Piper wanted to yell, to scream at how evil the wasteland truly was. Once again Piper, observant Piper had known what was going on before hand. The raiders were a gang working with her father’s supervisor and when the they’d sack the settlement successfully the captain/supervisor would get a cut of the money too.

_The blood, so much blood and the tears, so many tears._

They laid their father to rest three days after Nat’s fifth birthday. _“We don’t have to celebrate…”_ Piper had told the solemn little girl, but Natalie just gave her that newly toothless grin and broke her heart clean in two once more, _“we’ll celebrate because daddy would want us to!”_ It broke her heart because she knew her sister was right. So they had lunch that day beside their parents graveside and as she watched her kid sister laugh happily trying to catch the local stray mange ridden dog she began to ponder on why she ever tried to hate her to begin with.

Piper couldn’t continue to live in their hometown, not with all the sad faces and corrupt quiet citizens living among them. It wasn’t that she feared for her safety but for Nat’s, she was loathe to admit it but she loved her sister regardless of what her father thought in those last few days and Nat was all she had left; she would keep her safe. Diamond City was where they were headed, one of the non-corrupt guards who survived the last raid told her that was her best bet with a child in tow. He was right but also wrong, this place was worse than their settlement but it was large and they had a good school Natalie could attend. Piper took what caps she had left and bought their place, it was hooked onto an old printing press building and thus Publick Occurrences was born. 

That was fives years ago and Piper couldn’t believe how the time had flown by. Little Natalie wasn’t so little anymore at ten years old and Piper was freshly twenty-nine,- truthfully she never believed she’d make it to this age and turning thirty soon enough terrified her. She dutifully wiped the tears from her terminal keyboard and began typing once more, this month’s main article was about family and Piper’s family was far from normal. There was Nat, herself, Nick Valentine the local synth detective that basically took them in once they arrived at the Diamond and now Blue. Nora was something else but she changed their lives for the better, she might be a few hundred years old but she was the person they needed in their lives, she was their Blue. 

Piper could hear the downstairs door slam and familiar sound of pre-teen stomping through her living room- Nat was home. She shook her head, that girl was going to drive her insane and that was only at _ten_ so she dreaded even thinking about a teenage Natalie. Probably some puppy love issue with that Sheng Kawolski again, if that boy didn’t keep his grubby little lips off her sister Piper would punch him herself this time. 

“Nat c’mere!” Piper called out. 

Of course, no reply. 

“Natalie Ethel Wright, I said come here!” 

There was that stomping once more, she could only laugh about it. 

Nat appeared in her doorway grimacing, “what do you want, Pipes?” 

Piper patted her lap from where she sat at the foot of her bed, she had to hold back a loud giggle as she watched the flash of disgust across her sister’s face; she knew what was coming. 

“Piper I am too big to be sitting in your lap!” 

Piper only rolled her eyes at her melodramatic baby sister. _‘Baby’_ she wasn’t a baby anymore and she did have to stop treating her like one but she could at least indulge her big sister for the time being. They have a silent understanding as Nat climbs into her lap and wraps her arms tightly around her big sister, her _mom_ really. 

“Hey, what’s the matter, bloodbug?” Piper asks soothingly, once she hears her sister’s sniffling. 

Natalie only buries her face deeper into Piper’s neck quelling her now loud sobbing. Piper didn’t know who hurt her but she knows who ever they are she’ll make them pay, so she rubs her back and let’s her cry it out for now while silently plotting another souls demise. 

Nat looks up, slowly staring into the blank far wall, “they made fun of me.” 

Okay who was this girl and where was her little sister because Piper and everyone else in Diamond City knew no one called Natalie Wright names without meeting her fist afterwards- not that Piper was proud of that, but she was glad her sister could take care of herself. _This_ was just highly uncharacteristic of her, this was the little girl who stared down a super mutant and stuck her tongue out at it! 

“ _Who?_ Who made fun of you and why?” Piper asked while wiping away a stream of tears. 

Nat hiccuped a few more times before explaining, “all of the kids- except Sheng but all of the rest! We celebrate families this month and they thought it would be funny to make fun of me because I don’t have a mom or a dad…,” 

Piper could feel her own hot tears stinging her eyes now at her sister’s explanation. She knew this kind of thing would happen eventually but she didn’t realize how harshly it would effect Nat. Piper knows that Natalie feels loved, the girl practically latches onto her in the morning kissing her cheek before school and whispering a quiet _“I love you, Pipes.”_

“I love you, Nat-” 

“I know you do Piper but is it really the same?” Natalie sobs cutting her off.

Piper shakes her head, willing her own tears away, “I know baby, I know. It’s not the same and I’ll never be _them_ but you have me; you’ll always have me.” 

If someone would have told nineteen year old Piper she’d eventually feel this much fierce love for her baby sister- no, her _daughter,_ she’d never believe them. If someone had told her she would openly claim Nat as her daughter back then she would have spit at them. But now as her ten year old sister is curled into her arms she truly feels the weight of all the pain they’ve suffered but suffered through together. 

“Look at me,” Piper asks her, “look at me Natalie,” Piper says this time grabbing Nat’s chin.

“Our situation isn’t ideal, nothing about what we’ve gone through is normal or ideal,” Piper calmly states, pressing her forehead against her baby sister’s, “but we have each other, we always have and you know no matter what happens I will fight till my dying breath to make you feel safe and loved, do you understand me?” 

Natalie only nods her head yes as their foreheads remain pressed together and when hazel-green eyes meet hazel-grey two pieces of their parents love is still alive and flourishing in this broken battered wasteland. So as Piper hears four words fall from her sister’s mouth she’s never heard strung together before she’s not surprised but only proud that she’s done good enough for her sister to feel that way. 

“I love you, _momma.”_

“I love you more, baby girl.” 

Piper Wright would always be her _sister’s keeper._


End file.
